At Ecogenic Research Collective Inaugural Exhibition’s First Instar, I presented my research on making petrochemical-free inks in the form of a bio recipe book accompanied by prints made with natural inks from the recipe book on naturally made paper. On opening night, I presented the audience with food from the cookbook such as pickled onions and lemon rinds to discuss how seeing natural materials for their entire value can inform their own art practice by making ink with onion skins or using lemon as a pH modifier in order to illustrate how creatives could use a biobased ‘cookbook’ to inform their own making practices. The ensuing conversation with artists allowed us to identify where, they too, could practice petro-free being in their own work and inviting them to contribute to the biobased cookbook to archive the material knowledge occurring in our first physical iteration of this ecological art collective.

Ecogenic Research Collective was founded by material artists Anna Cain & Grey DeGregorio.

Posters designed by Susie Bush & Bina Thorsen.